There’s something about Halloween candy that brings out the child in all of us and sends even normally restrained grown-ups diving into trick-or-treat buckets in search of Reese’s and M&M’s.

So it sounds almost sacrilegious to say this, but something terrible has happened to candy corn. In our blissfully hazy recollections, those nostalgic tricolored triangles were melt-in-your-mouth morsels. Candy bars oozed deliciousness, not musty waxiness.

Do not get us started on Cracker Jack.

Store-bought treats may be fine for trick-or-treat night, when you’re dispensing candy to an overwhelming horde of zombies, Mileys and Disney characters. But if you’re throwing a Halloween party, you may want to up the candy ante with a few tips, tricks and treats from the pros.

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Make the treats yourself, says chocolatier Susie Norris, and you’ll have candy corn that’s better than the original. It’s even better than the nostalgic reverie-enhanced original. Your Snickers look-alikes will be fluffy, the nonpareils deeply chocolaty, and the Tootsie Rolls and taffies will melt in your mouth, not glue your jaws together.

Yum.

Norris was teaching baking and candy-making at Los Angeles’ Le Cordon Bleu when she discovered that she and her close friend Susan Heeger shared a common obsession.

“We both had this absolute passion for Halloween candies,” she says. “It was this dark secret we kept from our families: how many candy bars we ate at Halloween — and through October.”

But you can take those flavors, she says, “the caramel and nuts and chocolate and nougat and make them very sophisticated -- a Snickers bar, if they fluffed it up.” Their new book, “Hand-Crafted Candy Bars” (Chronicle, $24.95, 160 pages), proves the point with recipes for everything from Molten Chocolate-Peanut Bars, a Snickers taste-alike, to Candied Mint and Citrus Bark. Those sugar-crisped mint leaves look particularly Halloweenish peeking from the surface.

Candy corn is simply tinted fondant — the same stuff wedding cake bakers use to drape their tiered extravaganzas. Make it yourself, and the results are not only creamy, melt-on-the-tongue fabulous, but you can tint and mold it into any shape — iconic Halloween triangles, sunflowers, ghosts, anything.

And those disappointing sprinkle-strewn nonpareils that always look so good in the jar? You don’t even need a recipe for that, say Liddabit Sweets’ confectioners Liz Gutman and Jen King. Melt good quality dark chocolate. Pipe little buttons of chocolate on a sheet of parchment. Break out the sprinkles. Let them set for a few minutes. Try not to eat them all in one sitting.

All these candies rely on a few simple techniques: “Tempering” chocolate helps it retain its gloss, for example, and boiling sugar syrup makes it caramelize and eventually solidify. You can use that sugar syrup to make caramel for dipping apples -- or even better, tiny apple balls, carved out with a melon baller. Or you can use the same technique and slightly different ingredients and end up with that boardwalk staple, saltwater taffy. Add peanut butter, says Gutman, co-author of “The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook” (Workman, 417.95, 302 pages), and you get a classic Abba-Zaba.

Make it intensely chocolate taffy, Norris says, and you’ll have a Tootsie Roll — and your kids will raid your trick-or-treat bucket.

THE CANDY THERMOMETER

In the same way that you use a thermometer to check the doneness of your Thanksgiving turkey, you need a special thermometer for candy-making. Available at kitchen boutiques and well-equipped supermarkets, these thermometers perch on the side of your pan and measure temperatures from 100 to 400 degrees. If you plan to temper chocolate, you need one that measures lower temperatures, too.

Before you use your shiny new toy, make sure it’s calibrated correctly. A pot of boiling water should be 212 degrees. If it’s a degree or two off, take that into account when you use it. If it’s many degrees off — like the 20-plus degrees on the dud I just purchased — you need a new thermometer.

Fish out the vanilla bean pod with tongs. Sprinkle the salt evenly over the surface of the taffy. Cool until warm to the touch, 30 to 45 minutes.

Turn the cooled taffy onto a large oiled cutting board. Stretch the taffy out with both hands, fold it over on itself and stretch again. Repeat this continuously until the taffy has turned opaque and white, about 15 minutes.

Generously grease the blades of your kitchen scissors and your hands. Pull the taffy into 4 equal pieces. Roll the first into an 18-inch log. Snip off 11/2-inch pieces; immediately roll them in wax paper, so they hold their shape. Repeat with remaining taffy. Store in an airtight container up to 3 weeks.

Using a double boiler or stainless steel bowl set over, but not touching, barely simmering water, melt the chocolate. Stir in the corn syrup, vanilla and salt. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. The chocolate should come together with the consistency of pie dough and become more flexible as you work with it.

Place the mixture on a work surface covered with parchment paper and roll it into a 1/4-inch thick disc. Form it into 6-inch logs or the shape of your choice. (If it’s too soft, chill it for 20 minutes.) Serve at room temperature.

In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat. Add corn syrup and cook for 5 to 7 minutes. When the mixture reaches 238 degrees on a candy thermometer, pour it into the bowl of an electric mixer; let cool 1 minute. Set the bowl over the ice and let syrup cool about 15 minutes, to 110 degrees.

Using the paddle attachment on the mixer, mix the syrup on medium speed for at least 10 minutes. The syrup will change from a yellowish to a white, sticky liquid that eventually thickens into a paste. Once it does, add the vanilla and salt. Remove the paste from the bowl; knead it a little with your hands.

Refrigerate the fondant for about 20 minutes. Then separate it into three batches. Apply a few drops of orange food coloring to the first batch; knead well to mix. Add yellow food coloring to the second; leave the third white.

Assemble the classic candy corn triangles with a plump ball of orange fondant on the bottom, a smaller ball of white in the center and a small ball of yellow at the top. Dip your finger in water and rub the pieces lightly, then press them together to form the triangle shape. Chill 20 minutes to set.

In a 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the corn syrup, sugar, butter and 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cream. Heat until mixture reaches 275 degrees on a candy thermometer, about 15 minutes, stirring often with the thermometer or a wooden spoon once it starts to turn color.

Grease a baking sheet. Place pecans and chocolate chips on separate plates. Using a 1-inch melon baller, cut apples into balls, 8 to 10 per apple. Push thickest end of a twig into each apple ball through the skin side to the center. Set on paper towels to absorb moisture.

Remove caramel from heat when it hits 275 degrees; pour in remaining cream, stirring until very smooth, about 1 minute, being careful of any splattering caramel.

Dip apple balls into the caramel, making sure the caramel comes over the edges of the skin; let excess drip off. Dip bottom of each ball into the nuts or chocolate, then set on baking sheet to cool. Serve immediately, or chill up to 3 hours, then serve at room temperature.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the 1 cup sugar in a shallow bowl. Dip the mint leaves in a pan of room-temperature tap water just long enough to soften, about 5 seconds. Scoop them out with a strainer, then dip them, one at a time, in the sugar to coat heavily on both sides. Place leaves on one of the baking sheets, and bake 1 hour in a low oven, 100 to 200 degrees.

For the citrus, bring the sugar, water, vanilla and salt to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat. Turn off heat; let the simple syrup cool 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring two medium saucepans of water to a boil. Zest the fruit, cutting each piece into thin strips. Place the zest in a strainer; dip into the first pot of boiling water for 20 seconds. Repeat with the second pot. Transfer to the pan of simple syrup, and let sit for a few minutes. Drain zest on a paper towel, pat dry and shower generously with sugar. Place on the second baking sheet; bake for about 1 hour in a low oven, 100 to 200 degrees.

For the chocolate, put the ice in a large bowl and set aside. Using a double boiler or stainless steel bowl set over, but not touching, barely simmering water, melt all but a handful of the chopped chocolate until the molten chocolate reaches 115 degrees on a candy thermometer.

Remove the bowl, and wipe the bottom with a towel so no water gets on your work surface. Add the remaining chocolate to the bowl and stir. Place the bowl over the bowl of ice for a few seconds at a time, removing it, stirring until smooth and repeating until the temperature drops to 82 degrees. Heat the chocolate again by placing it back over the simmering water for 30 seconds to 1 minute at a time. Once its temperature rises to 90 degrees, it is tempered and ready to use.

Line another baking sheet with parchment. Place the mint and citrus on top, reserving about 10 pieces for garnish. Pour 1/2 inch of chocolate over the baking sheet; decorate the top with reserved citrus. Let harden at room temperature for 20 minutes or in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. When fully set, break the bark into pieces and serve.